


And Your Wings Will Burn

by ChasingParadise (cerozeros)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-07 00:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1878735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerozeros/pseuds/ChasingParadise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles woke up from the ice, he was not expecting to find two Southern Water Tribe villagers, or to be told that a hundred years had passed while he was a living popsicle.</p><p>Then Captain Jerk had to come along and make things worse (but better, in the end).</p><p>A Teen Wolf/Avatar the Last Airbender fusion, because I needed this now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for any errors, as this is my first time writing in a while and this is unbeta'd. Happy reading!

Scott was really starting to regret the decisions he’d made today. But then again, he usually regretted all things when they involved his cousin.

“Uh, Lydia, are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked, gnawing on his lip in worry.

“Shush, Scott. There’s something in the ice…” Lydia muttered as she peered into the gigantic sphere of ice that was currently floating towards their tiny fishing boat.

Scott tugged worriedly on his wolf tail as his cousin continued to stare intently at the ice chunk. Suddenly, she took in a deep breath in through her nose and breathed out with her mouth. The boy warrior watched in awe as the ice chunk split in half with a wave of his cousin’s hands. 

“… Are you sure you’ve never had bending lessons before?” he wondered in awe.

Flipping her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder, she scoffed. “Oh please, Scott.”

Both were distracted from their conversation as a giant ball of fur tumbled out of the splintering ice, with a much smaller figure following after it. As soon as they hit the water, Lydia raised her hands and the waves brought the mysterious ice-beings to their boat.

“It’s a person!” Scott gasped as Lydia brought the unconscious boy gently into their boat.

Lydia’s brows furrowed slightly as she used some healing water to study the body of the boy before her.

“He’s alive!” she exclaimed softly.

Just as she said so, the boy’s eyes burst open in a momentary flash of bright white light. Scott and Lydia both shielded their eyes with a cry, but the light had already dissipated as suddenly as it came. When the southerners slowly opened their eyes once more, the boy was awake and staring back at them with startled brown eyes. 

They blinked.

He blinked.

Suddenly, the boy—Scott realized that he wasn’t actually a boy, most likely around the same age as Scott’s 16 years—jumped into the air with a startled shout. But when Scott said jumped, he meant literally—the boy shot about twenty feet straight up towards the sky, then floated back down and fell on his butt in the boat.

“You’re an airbender! But that’s not possible!” cried Lydia.

“Huh? Why not?” he asked.

“Cause they all got wiped out like a hundred years ago!” Scott blurted without thinking.

A second later, he realized that probably wasn’t the best thing to say to the guy who was obviously an airbender.

“What? What are you guys talking about?”

Lydia glared at Scott, then turned to the airbender.

“Hey, what’s your name? I’m Lydia, and this is my cousin Scott, who apparently has forgotten all of his manners,” she hissed the last part at him, and Scott rubbed his neck sheepishly.

“Oh, uh, I’m Stiles. But hey, what did you mean when you said the airbenders were all—”

Lydia cut off Stiles by holding her hand up and raising a perfectly groomed eyebrow. The airbender stopped talking immediately and cowered under her gaze. When she put her hand back down, his own went up to rub at his head, which was covered in a short layer of brown buzzed hair. Scott, whose eyes followed Stiles’s hand up to his head, noticed something then.

“Hey, those are really cool tattoos!” Scott remarked.

He then grinned at the airbender. Stiles grinned in return, then rubbed at the blue arrow on his forehead.

“Oh, yeah. This is—Betty!” Stiles cried out, startling the other two.

“Huh? Wh—”

But that was all Scott got out before a large shadow came across their boat. The pair of cousins looked up with wide eyes to see the previously forgotten lump of fur flying above their heads.

“Betty’s my sky bison,” Stiles proclaimed with a smug smile upon seeing the shocked looks on the others’ faces, “Isn’t she beautiful?”

Lydia glanced at him skeptically, then looked back up at the bison circling overhead.

“Aren’t sky bison stripes supposed to be brown, not… blue?” she asked, raising her eyebrow yet again.

Scott refers to that eyebrow as the eyebrow of I’m-not-taking-any-bullshit-from-you-so-don’t-even-try.

Stiles laughed sheepishly, then explained, “Yeah, I have no idea why hers are like that. I’ve never seen another sky bison with stripes that color. But that’s what makes my Betty so special, isn’t it baby?”

As Stiles directed the last part of his sentence upwards, Lydia’s lips twitched. Scott watched as Stile’s eyes darted to her lips, then around her entire face.

“Anyway, we’re going back to the village. I’m going to have a nice, hot seaweed bath, then we’re going to catch you up on about… one hundred years of history,” Lydia proclaimed.

She turned around with a flip of her hair and started bending the boat back to the village 

“I think I’m in love,” Stiles whispered to Scott.

Scott looked at Stiles, who had a dreamy look on his face, then at Lydia, then back again.

“Dude, that’s my cousin!”

 

 

\--

 

 

Derek huffed out a smoky sigh as his uncle continued to whistle the irritating tune over again for the fifth time in fifteen minutes. 

“Will you please stop that,” he scowled, then crossed his arms as his uncle continued to whistle innocently.

“Oh please, dear nephew, one does not simply stop whistling the classics,” Peter smirked.

Then again, his uncle talking wasn’t much better than his uncle whistling, which left Derek stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“How is a song about the four seasons a classic,” Derek growled, everlasting scowl still on his face.

Peter stared at his nephew with an eyebrow, then grinned. Derek hated that eyebrow. Good things never followed it. And a second later, he was proven right.

“I do believe you need a shave, dear nephew. All that stubble gets in the way of your angry brooding.”

Derek growled once more, then stalked off the deck. They’d been sailing around the nations for months now, and had finally gotten hold of a lead when Boyd spotted a signal fifteen minutes ago coming from an old Fire Nation trap in the only remaining village in the southern water tribe. His stoic first mate had fetched Derek and brought him on deck to see the signal, all the while without muttering a word. This was why Boyd was his favorite.

After entering his quarters, he slammed his door shut for good measure, even if his uncle wouldn’t be able to hear him. He then scowled darkly as he spotted the letter that he’d left open on his desk. Even without looking he knew what was written on it by heart, because all of the letters he ever received now all said the same thing.

_Dearest Derek,_

_Our patience grows thin as the days pass by. Your darling sisters are still comfortable in the capital, for now. Your deadline is soon approaching, and I’d hate for your sisters to encounter a sudden… accident during their stay. I look forward to seeing you again with the Avatar in tow. Give my warm regards to that lovely uncle of yours._

_With love,_

_Kate Argent, Fire Lord Empress of the Grand Fire Nation Empire._

Derek could feel the sarcasm dripping from every single ink drop on the paper. Angrily, he crushed the paper in his fist and sent a burning flame through his hand. He sighed, and then tossed the ashes out the porthole.

The ship raced to the nearing shore, but as fast as it was going, Derek still needed more time.

 

 

\-- 

 

 

“How was I supposed to know there was a booby trap in the creepy old abandoned Fire Nation ship?!” Stiles scowled as he and Scott ran hurriedly back towards the village.

“We warned you! Penguin sledding comes with consequences, especially in these parts!” Scott cried, panting harshly.

In fact, he was panting way _too_ harshly.

“Woah! Dude, what’s wrong?” Stiles exclaimed as he caught Scott mid-fall.

“Can’t… breathe… Need Lydia,” Scott gasped.

Without another word, Stiles wrapped Scott’s arm around his shoulder, then used his airbending to propel them forward quickly in large jumps. As he neared the village, he saw Lydia running towards them in all her strawberry blonde glory.

“Lydia! Something’s wrong with Scott, he—”

“Move!” she barked with barely a glance towards the panicked airbender.

She then ran some glowing water over Scott’s chest, and slowly but gradually, his breathing deepened and his chest stopped heaving.

“Okay, what the hell just happened?” Stiles asked, heart still pounding with panic.

“The chi pathways in Scott’s lungs are a little tangled, so sometimes when he does anything strenuous, his lungs don’t function very well,” Lydia explained concisely.

Stiles felt really guilty then because this was all his fault—the penguin sledding, the booby trap, Scott’s lungs failing, all of it.

“I—I’m gonna make sure that whoever saw the trap go off stays away from you guys, okay?” Stiles declared while avoiding eye contact with the southerners.

Before they could get another word in—Scott’s puppy face was not helping Stiles’s guilt, not one bit—Stiles took off with a rush of wind.

 

 

 --

 

  

As Stiles neared the village shore, he saw a looming black ship steadily drawing closer. He could just barely make out the Fire Nation insignia on the flag that fluttered from its mast. Face steeled into a determined glare, he called for Betty with a sharp whistle. Ignoring the concerned villagers who’d gathered around after spotting the approaching ship, he leaped up onto Betty’s saddle and flew towards the ship.

As he approached the Fire Nation ship, he could just make out the startled faces of the various crewmembers on deck. With determination set on his face, he sprang down from the saddle and landed gently on the metal deck. As his red robes settled down, he immediately found himself surrounded by firebenders, whose arms and legs were posed in battle-ready stances.

He stared at all of them, then remarked, “Wow, what a _warm_ welcome. So who do I have to go to in order to have a discussion on my inevitable capture?”

A smirking man opened his mouth, but before he could say a word, a tall, dark-skinned man stepped up in front of him. Without a word, he gestured with a hand for the airbender to follow. Shrugging, Stiles trailed along after him after shouting at Betty to stay where she was. The smirking man—who was still smirking, was his face stuck like that, or something?—followed the two.

The broad crewmember led him below deck, travelling through a long, dark, and cramped hallway before stopping before a door with the Fire Nation insignia emblazoned onto it.

“Captain’s quarters,” he grunted before knocking.

The door swung open with a clang, and suddenly a scowl and some major stubble filled his vision.

“Is this scrawny kid really the Avatar?” a surprisingly soft voice questioned.

It totally didn’t match the face, thought Stiles, before his brain caught up to his ears.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, face twisted in indignation.

“Well, you do look like an airbender,” stated Scowl-and-Stubble, as if there was something _wrong_ with his traditional airbender robes, tattoos, and buzzed hair, and Stiles really needed a name to match the face.          

“So, uh, who do I have the pleasure of being insulted by today?” Stiles snapped

The captain, who looked surprisingly young for someone of his position, scowled.

“Captain Hale,” he grunted back.

“Oookay, _Hale_ , I’m Stiles, I’m an airbender, and I’m the Avatar, yeah. Now that introductions are over and done with, what will it take for you to turn this hunk of metal around and leave the villagers alone? Because I’m not worried for them you see, more for you, because they have this badass waterbender who will totally kick your asses, since she’s actually the most perfect being to ever have—”

Derek cut off Stiles’s rambling with a growled, “Shut. Up.”

Before either of them could get another word in, the creepy smirking guy stepped up beside Hale 

“Now, Stiles, since you seem like a reasonable young man, let’s say you come with us peacefully, without any tricks, fighting, blowing us off our feet. Then we see no reason to harm your precious village, hmm?”

“Uncle Peter,” Hale hissed, glaring at his uncle.

“Wow, what a family resemblance,” Stiles drawled.

He heard a snort behind him, but when he turned to look at the hulking man blocking his way to the entrance, his face was as stoic and expressionless as ever. He shot a grin at the man before turning back towards the pair of bickering relatives 

“Fine,” Stiles declared.

“Fine,” Hale muttered, but whether it was to him or to his uncle, Stiles really wasn’t sure.

Suddenly, the boat rocked violently, metal creaking against metal in protest of the action.

“Boyd!” Hale barked. “What’s going on?!”

However, Hale got his reply when a giant wave of water knocked the door off its hinges and proceeded to soak everyone and everything inside the captain’s quarters. Stiles whooped when he saw Lydia standing in the open doorway, hands on her hips and radiating goddess-like glory.

“You,” he concluded, “are my queen.”

He hightailed it out of there, leaving the spluttering firebenders behind in their soaking misery. A giggle burst its way out from his mouth as he followed Lydia back up to the deck. Various icicle statues containing crewmembers with varying expressions met him there, as well as Betty. On top of Betty, holding her reins, was—

“Scott, my man!” Stiles shouted with a happy wave. 

“Stiles! Hey!”

Betty roared happily as Stiles and Lydia climbed aboard, and the airbender took the reins from his friend.

“Why’d you guys come after me, though? I was totally handling things,” Stiles said as they flew away from the ship. 

“You left your staff behind, of course we had to return it,” Lydia scoffed as she handed Stiles’s glider staff to him.

“She was also pretty worried about you. And me, too, of course!” Scott grinned.

Lydia raised an eyebrow at her cousin, but just sniffed and turned her face away from them. Sties was about to quip something in return, but then realized that they weren’t out of danger just yet. 

Several large fireballs were rushing towards them. Stiles shouted for Lydia, and the two kept the flaming projectiles at bay with either bursts of air or waves of water. 

“We can’t lead them back to the village!” shouted Scott. “If we fly away from the village, then maybe they’ll follow us and the villagers will be safe!”

Before the other two could reply, however, giant ropes of flame shot towards them. Betty dodged with a roar, and Stiles looked back to see Hale at the other end of the flames, scowl present on his face as usual.

“Try and catch me, Captain _Jerk_!” he yelled, sticking out his tongue for good measure. 

He could literally see Hale growl, and that was just a really satisfying feeling.

“Who’s that? He looks like a jerk,” Scott frowned.

“The jerkiest,” Stiles nodded as they dodged more fireballs. “He scowls and growls and has no sense of humor.”

Lydia rolled her eyes and barked, “Less talking, more escaping!”

“Yes ma’am!” Stiles grinned, and with a burst of speed, the ship was eventually far behind them.

“Soo,” Scott began to say, “where are we headed next? We can’t go back to the village because they’ll just follow us there, right?”

Lydia nodded in agreement.

“We’ll have to head for the mainlands,” Stiles reasoned, “And I really need to visit the air temples,” he murmured.

Scott and Lydia looked worriedly at each other. They had a lot of history to catch the airbender up on.

 

 

 --

 

 

Derek slammed his fist against the railing. He was wet, tired, and angry. The Avatar had gotten away, and now he needed even more time to catch up and find him.

“Derek, what should we do about the village? The Avatar broke his promise, after all,” drawled his uncle from behind him. 

Without turning, Derek stared out to the open sea and huffed, “No point in bothering with the village. It’s faster to just follow him.”

He could _feel_ his uncle grin behind him, but he still refused to turn around.

“You heard the man,” ordered Peter at the rest of the thawing crew. “Get your asses out of that ice—you called yourself firebenders, after all—and get going! The chase for the Avatar is on!”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles goes home, Scott meets the love of his life, and Lydia finds yet another way to raise her badass level.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UNEDITED. SO TOTALLY UNEDITED, because I am a lazy bastard.  
> You're more than welcome to point out any mistakes, I will scold myself for them and fix them immediately!  
> Enjoy this totally rushed chapter, because unfortunately it's all I could get in before I start camp in two days. I'll try to upload something sometime in the next week or so, but no guarantees.

“So,” said Lydia, “Here’s the long overdue history lesson that you really need.”

Stiles made a face at Scott, who looked on at him in pity, but eventually turned his attention back to the waterbender.

“Do you know Gerard Argent? Because everything started with him, a hundred years ago.”

Stiles nodded as he ran a hand over what little hair he had. “Yeah, the monks mentioned him a couple of times, something about how he was stirring things up in the Fire Nation.”

“He did a lot more than stir things up. A hundred years ago, in what’s known as the Silver Coup, Gerard led his supporters in a coup that eventually took all power to the throne away from the Hales, the rightful rulers of the Fire Nation. He then started a long and violent conquest of the four nations, starting with the annihilation of all the air nomads. He knew that the Avatar had reincarnated as an airbender based on the cycle, and that he was the only one that could stop the new ruler. Obviously, he didn’t succeed if you’re here. Which leads to the question, are you the Avatar, Stiles?”

Stiles gulped as the two water tribe villagers turned their stares toward him.

“I—Yeah, I am. The Avatar. The reason I was in the ice was because… Well, I’d just found out that I was the one who had to bring balance to the world and whatever, and it was too much to take in. So I ran and got caught up in a storm with Betty, and I guess I somehow stayed alive for a hundred years… So wait, does this mean I’m a hundred and sixteen years old?!” exclaimed Stiles.

“Eww, dude, you’re so old!”

“Focus!” snapped Lydia. “You said that guy back on the ship was Captain Hale, right? For the past century, the Argents have been using the Hales to do their dirty work after they took away their power. He must be on Kate Argent’s orders to find you. Kate’s the current empress of the Fire Nation Empire and Gerard’s great-granddaughter. In the past one hundred years, the Fire Nation became an empire as they conquered a large majority of the world. Everywhere from small villages to great cities like Omashu—there are only a few places not under Fire Nation control, like the Northern and Southern Water Tribes, Ba Sing Se, and a few of the abandoned air temples.”

“… I need to visit the southern air temple,” Stiles murmured.

His face was a sickly pale, and he felt like his lungs weren’t getting enough air. The enormity of the situation was finally hitting him hard. But as the cousins voiced their concern, he took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked determined.

“I need to see for myself what happened to my home,” he declared.

Scott and Lydia glanced at each other, but said nothing as Stiles told Betty to head for the southern air temple.

 

 

\--

 

 

Of all people, Harris was the one person Derek didn’t want to see the most right at that moment. Of course, because the universe loved to shove his misery in his face, Peter came back to the ship with Harris in tow as they were finishing the last of the repairs from the damage caused by the Avatar and his friends.

“Captain,” he nodded as the two strolled into his quarters.

“Oh no, Captain Hale, it’s commander now,” Harris said, oozing smug satisfaction.

“Ah, congratulations on your promotion, commander.”

“Yes, well, it’s the least I deserve, really.”

Derek watched as Peter rolled his eyes from his place behind Harris, and silently yelled at him for bringing the _peacock_ (because that’s what Harris was, really) onboard in the first place.

“So, Hale, I see you’ve been making repairs. What happened, run into some penguins in the South Pole?”

“Hardly,” Peter cut in smoothly, “Just some rowdy earthbenders who thought they’d stir up some trouble at the last port over.”

Harris looked at him, unimpressed and obviously not buying it, but Peter just kept smirking. Derek hated to admit it, but sometimes his uncle being infuriating was a good thing. Sometimes.

“Well, then, I’ll leave you to your repairs, I suppose. Unless, of course, you have anything else of importance that you would like to report back to the Empress.”

“Ah, not at all, commander. Please, allow me see you out,” his uncle offered after he and Derek exchanged the slightest look.

“No need, General,” Harris protested.

They bowed to each other and Harris made to leave, but as he turned his back to Derek he urged, “And next time you see the Avatar, please give him greetings from the Empress.”

Derek and Peter both stiffened, but Harris just stalked out of view without a backwards glance.

“Dammit,” Derek growled as he pounded his fist against the wall. “We had a rat sailing with us this whole time. And now Kate will know that the Avatar is back, if not already.”

“Dear nephew, what else did you expect?”

Derek scowled, whether at his uncle or at everything else he wasn’t sure, then huffed in annoyance. When the repairs were finalized and the rat who’d reported to Harris was kicked off of the ship, he would order his crew to sail full steam ahead. He had an Avatar to capture, and he wouldn’t let anyone else get in the way of his sisters’ ticket to freedom.

 

 

\--

 

 

Scott knew that nothing good would come of visiting the Southern Air Temple, especially when he saw Stiles take in damage the firebenders had done to the entire temple and the utter silence that engulfed the entire area.

Everywhere they went, every building and structure Stiles recognized beyond the destruction, he got paler and paler. Scott knew Stiles was going to lose it sooner or later, and sure enough, they came across a lone monk’s bones perched against a low rising wall. Stiles dropped to his knees and said in an impossibly small voice, “Dad?”

_Oh no_ , thought Scott, before the world turned white as Stiles’s body lit up with an otherworldly glow.

Lydia, who’d been exploring some other rooms, came running towards them, yelling something about Avatar statues lighting up and acting as beacons. But Scott’s focus was on his friend’s floating figure. Stiles’ body looked calm, but his glowing eyes reflected a righteous fury that made Scott tremble. But even in his fear, he knew he had to do something, had to calm Stiles down.

“Stiles, please! You have to stop!” Scott pleaded as Lydia finally came, panting, to his side and stared at Stiles with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

Stiles continued to glow, and the cousins cried out in surprise as wind suddenly howled around them and the ground began to shake.

“Stiles!” yelled Lydia.

She’d seen the remains of the monk, and realized that must have been the trigger for… whatever this was. She could _feel_ the pain swirling around in the wind around them as it cut harshly across their faces and bodies.

Reaching out towards Stiles, Lydia started to talk. She had no idea what she was saying—how on earth was she supposed to comfort a lonely boy who had just discovered the greatest loss known to man—but she just talked, trying to project her voice while sounding calm.

When Scott realized she was telling him about their own losses, he added on that even though they’d all lost people, the three of them had each other now. They were family. Their voices and their words must have reached Stiles through his trance, because eventually, he visibly relaxed and dropped to the ground with a sigh. The elements ceased as suddenly as they had come, and Scott scampered forward to catch his friend.

“Oh Stiles,” Lydia murmured as she stood over him.

Scott looked up at her, the concern on his face plain to see.

“I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s feeling right now,” he said honestly.

“Me neither, Scott. Me neither.”

An hour later, when Stiles bolted up to his feet, Scott and Lydia both embraced him in a hug and held him throughout his wordless sobs.

 

 

\--

 

 

As they left the air temple behind and the boys were goofing off with the new flying lemur that was accompanying them, Lydia spoke up. “So, what’s the plan now?”

The boys stared at her as she continued. “I mean, since you’re the Avatar, you need to master all four elements. I haven’t seen you use anything besides air, so what are you going to do about learning the rest?”

“Hey, maybe you could teach him waterbending!” Scott exclaimed.

Lydia immediately rejected the idea, and Stiles slumped in dejection.

“I may be a genius at it, but I can’t take responsibility for teaching the Avatar when I had no formal teaching myself. We need to go to the North Pole and find a proper teacher for you,” Lydia concluded with a jerk of her head.

Stiles immediately perked up. “We could learn together, yeah that’d be great!”

Scott felt kind of left out, because hey guess who wasn’t a bender, but felt better as Stiles added, “And Scott could learn some warrior-y moves, learn to be all ‘hiyah!’ and ‘watcha!’ and stuff!”

“And I could finally get a proper water tribe weapon! Not just some random icicle!”

“…Dude, I kind of want to know the story behind _that_.”

And so, Scott began telling his tale of the great battle against the sea lion turtles as the trio plus the two animal companions flew towards their decided destination.

 

 

\--

 

 

“There have been multiple sightings of a flying bison overhead, but they haven’t actually stopped anywhere. They’ll have to stop soon for rest and supplies, and according to the path on this map, it looks like they’ll be landing around here,” Peter pointed to a spot on the large map laid out in front of them.

“Kyoshi Island,” Derek read aloud.

Boyd stood off to the side, watching silently as the Hales planned their next move.

 

 

\--

 

 

The sun was setting when Betty finally landed on an island. With a loud yawn that stirred up the air around them, Stiles jumped off of the flying bison and landed on the ground with a gentle thud.

“Man, I’m beat,” Scott yawned. “I hope there’s somewhere we can stay here.”

Lydia gave a sharp nod. “I refuse to sleep on anything remotely resembling a hard surface for the next _week_.”

Stiles was about to pipe up with a suggestion, but suddenly they found themselves surrounded by several figures clad in what looked to be dark green robes. They immediately grouped together, ready for battle, when a feminine voice rang out from the forest around them.

“Who are you?” the voice asked as the mysterious figures took on battle stances in unison.

“Woah woah, we come in peace?” Stiles managed to get out.

He took one unsteady step towards the nearest person, which caused them all to whip out… fans?

“Hey, are we dancing?” Scott asked brightly, because fan dancing, that was a thing he could do (blame Lydia and her penchant for discovering new things when she was bored).

The unknown attackers obviously took offense to that, because as both Stiles and Lydia hissed, “Scott!” multiple figures came at them and swiftly knocked each of them out.

 

 

\--

 

 

Scott sighed for the millionth time in the last hour.

“Stiles, I can’t even begin to explain, she’s so—”

“Perfect, beautiful, amazing, strong, awesome, badass, and perfect, yeah I think I got it the first hundred times you said it!” Stiles exclaimed in exasperation, voice gradually rising to a shout.

Lydia rolled her eyes as the two continued to bicker.

“But Stiles, you don’t understand! I need to—I need to do something! I don’t wanna leave her here! She’s the love of my life, Stiles!” Scott cried with a wave of his arms.

“Scotty, please, just go ask her to come with us or something! I can’t stand this anymore, man.”

“But—but Stiles!”

All talking in the room ceased when the person of their discussion stepped up behind them.

“Lydia, right? We’d be happy to teach you our way of combat, as you asked,” she offered.

“Thank you, Allison. Let’s leave these two boys to their bickering, shall we?” Lydia huffed as she followed the Kyoshi warrior out of their living quarters and towards the dojo.

“Perfect Stiles, perfect!” Scott wailed as soon as the girls were out of hearing range.

Stiles tried so, so hard not to, but in the end, he smacked his palm against in forehead and sighed.

 

 

\--

 

 

As soon as the familiar Fire Nation ship stopped in the shallows of the harbor, the warriors on lookout rang the warning bells and alerted the village.

“Shit, it’s The Jerk’s ship!” Stiles cursed as he flew over to assess the situation.

Allison was already on the beach, giving out orders with a fierce look on her face. “Keep them away from the village at all costs! It’s our duty to protect this island and those on it, because we protect those who need our protection!”

Stiles smacked Scott’s head when his friend let out yet another sigh. “No time, lover boy, we have to stop Hale!”

Firebender soldiers marched off the ship, and green and red stood still, both sides unwilling to move until orders were given.

“Get the Avatar!” Hale barked in the silence, and the battle started as fire clashed against steel.

“Why can’t he leave me alone,” Stiles groaned.

Weaving his way around fighters from both sides, he managed to find his way to face the captain.

“Hale! You and me buddy, let’s do this,” he challenged as he spun his staff into battle position.

The battle around them slowly faded away as Hale threw the first fiery punch. Stiles easily deflected the flames away with a wave of his staff, then sent back a blast of air. Hale threw himself to the side and smoothly turned the move into a roll, kicking a long rope of flame out to Stiles. The airbender smoothly leapt over it while swinging his staff down to send another blast of air towards Hale.

A piercing whistle distracted both of them momentarily, and they looked up to find Betty circling above them, Lydia at the reins.

“Stiles! Scott!” she shouted. “We have to get away from here!”

Hale growled, “Oh no you don’t,” and shot a fireball at Stiles, but it was already too late. Using the distraction, the Avatar had ran back to grab Scott, then sprang up into the air towards his bison.

The firebenders who weren’t fending off angry Kyoshi warriors all turned to send blasts of flame towards the escaping trio, but their efforts were in vain and the distraction only gave the green-clad warriors the upper hand.

Stiles heard Hale give a frustrated shout as Betty flew further and further out of sight. He also heard him order his men to fall back.

“Yes! They’re leaving!” Stiles crowed in triumph.

He heard Lydia sigh about the lack of comfortable bedding, but only received silence from Scott. When he turned around from his seat at Betty’s reigns, he immediately fell into panic upon seeing his friend.

“Scott! Scott, man you okay?”

He was curled up in the corner of the saddle, and gave no reply to Stiles or Lydia when they voiced their concern.

“Scott, are you okay? Did you get hurt anywhere? Scott!”

Finally, he sat up and turned towards them with a dazed look on his face and, thankfully, no visible sign of injury.

“I—I—She kissed me!” he swooned.

He fell on his back with a thump, and Lydia rolled her eyes in a sort of relieved exasperation.

“Uh—what?”

Stiles was totally not getting what was going on here.

“During the battle! I stepped in to defend her back against an attack, and then—and then she kissed me! She said she wanted to get something to eat together sometime,” Scott blushed.

“Uh, one problem dude. She’s _there_ ,” he said as he waved back at the general direction of Kyoshi Island, “and you’re pretty far from _there_. And not to rain on your parade, or anything, but we really don’t know when we’ll run into her again.”

Scott wailed in anguish and rolled up again, a dejected air radiating out from him.

Lydia cut in before he could start crying out his frustrations towards the sky.

“We’ll meet them again, don’t worry. She promised I’d get to complete my training someday, and I expect her to keep her word.”

Scott immediately jumped up and hugged his cousin. Stiles cracked up as Lydia tried to pry him and his tears of gratitude off of her, and the trio continued their journey north, blissfully ignorant of the smoky ship that was hot on their trail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I can't do this writing thing, how what why.  
> I won't be including every single ATLA episode in this story, maybe just mentions of certain events. If there's an episode you really want to see written out, or certain characters and events, just let me know and I'll try my best to include them!  
> As always, your input is greatly appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott wonders how his life's main worries went from wondering when the next thaw would be to dodging fire catapults and facing off crazy, candy crunching kings. Lydia meets a rogue fighter who's really just a jackass, and Stiles gets rescued like a damsel in distress.
> 
> Meanwhile, Derek is still perpetually growly and Peter finds amusement in everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello? It's been awhile? I'm alive?  
> Unedited as always. Happy reading!

Scott had been unbelievably impressed with Omashu in general, but the whole mail chute surfing thing was by far his favorite part. That is, it was his favorite part until the three of them got arrested for destroying half the city.

(Well, not Lydia of course, she was too smart to do those kind of things, but she still ended up being dragged along anyway. With Stiles, it was impossible not to be involved somehow.)

Then it turned out that the king was a sadistic psychopath who enjoyed making teenagers suffer through brain games that really weren’t good for Scott’s brain. Then, it turned out that the king was actually Stiles’ friend from a hundred years ago? Man, everyone was so old these days.

"So you're actually  _not_ trying to kill us?" Scott asked warily.

"Not really, unless you'd like me to!" King Bumi chirped.

Lydia just continued to eye his rock candy distastefully, and Stiles just grinned. 

"It's good to see an old friend. Haha, get it? Old friend?" 

The pair chortled even as Lydia rolled her eyes and tightened her lips.

 

\--

 

Stiles was pretty bummed about having to leave Omashu, but like Lydia said, they had some waterbending to learn. So the trio had continued on with their travels, meeting various people (no coal bender was taking Lydia away from him, thank you very much) and seeing things he'd never dreamed of (Avatar Deaton, the fire nation avatar before him, was annoyingly cryptic with his whole 'you have to save the world, no pressure' thing). They'd even gotten their hands on a waterbending scroll, albeit illegally, who knew Lydia had it in her, and started going through the basics of waterbending. 

Everything had been going perfectly smoothly, but then of course the universe had to throw a wrench in his ten month plan for getting Lydia to fall in love with him.

That wrench was named Jackson. (Scott called him Jackass when he wasn't in hearing range. Stiles didn't bother with the discretion and only proceeded to call him by his given name when Lydia gave him that look.)

Stiles grumbled to himself incoherently as he eyed Jackson and Lydia having yet another "romantic treehouse dinner" a few yards away.

"Cheer up man! She'll see what a jackass he is eventually, and then she'll be all over you!" Scott encouraged with a slap on the back.

Stiles fumbled with his tea and cursed as he spilled some on his pants.

"Goddammit, that's hot!"

He shot to his feet and started hopping around, trying to air off the burning feeling in his groin area. Scott jumped up in panic as well and, being the true friend that he is, tried to find some extra pants that Stiles could change into before his balls burned off.

 

 

From his dinner table, Jackson looked up and rolled his eyes as he heard the screaming coming from the other treehouse.

"What a bunch of idiots," he muttered.

"A pair."

"What?" he asked as he eyed Lydia.

"A pair," she repeated. "There's two of them, whereas a bunch would mean there were a lot of them."

"Oookay," he drawled, still eyeing her, "whatever."

Lydia sniffed and went back to her meal.

Jackson had no idea whether this chick was into him or not, but then he thought to himself,  _Please, what girl wouldn't be falling all over me?_

 

 

 

Back in the other treehouse, Stiles suddenly stilled and wrinkled his nose as if in disgust. 

"My jackass radar just went off," he declared to Scott, who had finally found some clean pants. 

"Man, what did he do this time?" Scott wondered with a dark look.

"Well I haven't heard the sound of Lydia slapping him yet, so probably not anything that I should hang him by his damn hook for."

 

\--

 

"C'mon man, you can't do this! This isn't right!" Stiles yelled even as he struggled against the rope binding him.

"Sorry guys. Jackson's orders," Danny said as he tightened the knots on Scott's ropes.

"Dude, why do you even follow a jackass like him? He can't destroy an innocent village just to get a couple of fire nation soldiers, you know it's wrong! And he's trying to get Lydia to help him!"

"He's my best friend," Danny replied as he grabbed his bow and slung it on his back. "I'll do anything for my friends."

"So will I, but this isn't the right way to do this! Danny!  _Danny!_ " Stiles growled as the archer walked away from them. 

"I hope Lydia's okay," Scott murmured.

 

 

Not twenty minutes later, Lydia marched up to the tree they were tied up to and dropped Jackson, covered in wounds and a freaking  _icicle_ , at their feet. Danny, who had been trailing behind her hesitantly, rushed to untie Stiles and Scott when she growled some low words at him.

"Let's go," she muttered angrily as the two rubbed at their rope markings.

She marched off toward Betty's rumbles without another word. Unseen by the others behind her, she wiped a few tears from her face.

"She's terrifying," the boys heard Danny mumble as he tried to defrost his friend. 

Stiles' grin could've lit up an entire fire nation ship.

 

\--

 

If Derek hadn't been in front of a higher ranking officer, or his uncle, he would've slammed his head into the nearest wall.

"What do you mean,  _we can't pass through?_ " he growled at the newly promoted  _Admiral_ Harris.

"Exactly that, Captain. There's news of the Avatar being seen in this area. Until the Avatar is secure in my ship's prison, no ship is to pass through these waters."

With a smug smirk, Harris spun on his heels and walked off of Derek's ship.

For once, Peter was not smirking. 

"If he gets to the Avatar before you do-"

"I know," Derek gritted out through clenched teeth. "Laura and Cora, they..."

"Then it's no use moping around, is it? Do you have a plan?"

Derek scowled. He started pacing the floor, staring angrily down at the ground. The blood red carpet bearing the fire nation insignia at his feet filled his vision. When he glanced up again at his uncle, his vision focused on the two swords hanging on the wall behind Peter. A thought came to mind, and that thought quickly grew into an idea. A wild, crazy one, but an idea nonetheless.

"First we're going to get rid of this carpet," he declared. 

He glared at his uncle, challenging him to say something about it. Peter looked unabashedly amused, which made Derek scowl even more.

"Then I'm going to make sure Harris never leaves these waters with the Avatar in his hands."

 

\--

 

At first, seeing his friends all giggly and high had been really entertaining, but when Lydia started screaming like she'd seen a ghost and Scott tried to rip his throat out with non existent claws, Stiles realized he had to find some help. 

"Watch over them, 'kay Betty?" 

His sky bison rumbled in reply, curling her tail protectively around Scott and Lydia. Momo had flown off somewhere a while ago, but hopefully he would come back and help keep watch. That little guy could be fierce, winged claws and all.

Stiles took off into the air with a flick of his staff. 

 

 

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Stiles groaned as he faceplanted yet again in the mud. He'd been at this for half an hour, trying to find the frozen frogs that his friends needed to suck on to get better. All this was according to some old lady healer he'd found.

"That crazy lady better be right," he muttered darkly.

As he groped around for another frog, an arrow suddenly whistled by, just barely missing his ear. 

"What the-" he yelped as seven more followed, all whistling ominously through the air. 

When he look up, he saw several figures standing at the riverbank, bows in hand and firing another volley at him.

"Suck my frogs!" he yelled as he sprang into the air and launched a handful of frozen frogs at the archers.

"Oh shit, wait I needed those for--ouch, what have those frogs ever done to you!" he exclaimed as arrows pierced every single one of the frogs he'd thrown.

Obviously, these guys were not holding bows for the first time. He ran towards the tree he'd left his staff leaning against, still clutching the frogs he had left, but when he reached for his staff, an arrow pinned his sleeve to the bark. Not a second later, the rest of him was stuck to the tree by more arrows. 

He struggled, but his clothes stayed persistently stuck to the bark. What's more, he could feel some of the frogs starting to thaw. As he continued his attempts to escape, a group of fire nation soldiers approached. Before he could even say a word, one came up to him and knocked him out with a single blow.

Then, all he knew was darkness.

 

 

Something slimy was wiggling around in his shirt. 

"Woah!" Stiles exclaimed. 

He tried to raise a hand to flick whatever it was off him, but his arms wouldn't move. When he looked down, his eyes widened when he realized he was chained to the floor, manacles circling his wrists. A frog suddenly jumped out of his clothes, and when Stiles look back up he realized a bunch of them had escaped from their frozen states and were now escaping.

"Wait, no come back!"

Stiles ceased his struggling when suddenly, the door to the prison--because that's what this was, a prison--slammed open and a figure walked in with hands clasped behind his back.

"Hey, you're that asshole who tried to kill me at Avatar Deaton's temple!"

"Not kill, Avatar, just capture. After all, why would I kill you when I've been searching for you all this time?" he leered.

"Dude, you sound so creepy. Like, unbelievably, get your face outta my face creepy."

"I am Admiral Harris, and I will be taking you back to the fire nation capital in order to present you to Empress Kate Argent. She will be very pleased to finally meet you, Avatar."

"Uh, no can do. See, my friends are kinda sick, like crazy hallucination sick, so I need to get these frogs back to them before they, uh-"

"You won't be going anywhere, Avatar. So sit tight, because soon this ship will be departing. I'll see you again when we land," Harris smiled unpleasantly.

Stiles hated that guy. All the way down to his bones.

As soon as he left, Stiles doubled his efforts in trying to free himself of the chains. When ten minutes passed and his wrists started to chaff, he slumped to the ground dejectedly. 

_How am I gonna get out of here?_

 

 

 _Almost there_ , Derek sighed internally. He'd snuck into the army base by sneaking into a supply cart and was doing his best to avoid detection as he slowly made his way towards Harris' ship, which was docked at the edge of the courtyard. Even if he was noticed, though, he was unrecognizable. The dual dao swords that had been hanging on his wall were now snug against his back, and he was clad in black from head to toe with gloves on his hands and a short scarf around his neck.

His face was hidden behind a black mask carved in the likeness of a wolf. Red paint lined the eyes and snout, and a red spiral decorated the forehead. Two pointed ears jutted out from the top, embellished with gold detail. Earlier today, he'd dug it out from the bottom of one of his drawers and gingerly unwrapped the white cloth that it was enclosed in. He'd run his fingers gently down the paint lines and thought of one of the things his mother had said to him the last day he'd seen her. 

_The shape you take reflects the person that you are._

Then she'd left him this and disappeared, along with the rest of his family except for Peter, Laura, and Cora.

Now he donned this in remembrance of her, a promise to save his family from the Argents.

After hearing one of the guards mention the Avatar was now conscious in the brig, he stealthily made his way down there, thanking Agni that the layout of fire nation ships were all basically the same. He ducked into a shadowed corner when Harris stepped out of the prison, then waited to make sure no one else would be coming in or going out.

He tried the door and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was unlocked.  _Letting your guard down, Harris? He's getting complacent_ , Derek scoffed to himself and he let himself in. _  
_

 

Stiles froze as the door opened again, but this time, to his relief, it wasn't Harris that stepped through them. Instead, it was some dude in a black wolf mask.

"Who're you?" he asked warily, shifting away from the intruder.

The guy kept silent, but he kept walking towards him. Stiles gulped in fear when he unsheathed the two swords from his back in one swift, silent motion. The metal glinted in the flames lighting the room, and he wondered if he was going to die where he stood. The swords came down and he cringed back, but when he realized that his head was still in place and his body was free of stab wounds, he blinked opened his eyes to see that the chains holding him had been cut.

"Are you here to  _rescue_ me? Like a damsel in distress or something?" Stiles asked incredulously. 

He was kind of unnerved when the guy still didn't utter a word, but the guy sheathed his swords and beckoned with one hand, like a c'mere gesture.

"I am not a  _dog_ , thank you very much," Stiles muttered as they started walking out. "Wait, am I really being rescued here? The universe usually doesn't give me this kind of luck. It just doesn't give me favors and plop them into my lap, like here you go, have a nice life or something-"

He was cut off by a low growl. 

"Are you  _growling_ at me?" he stared at his mysterious rescuer.

He did it again, made that low growling noise, and Stiles retorted, "Okay, hold up Sourwolf, use your words like a normal human being."

He got the feeling that his rescuer was rolling his eyes at him. He elicited that response from a lot of people, he realized.

"Uh, are you gonna tell me who you are, or am I just gonna have to call you Sourwolf?"

Before he could get a response--or a non-response, in Sourwolf's case--he heard a few guards shout at them as they rounded a corner.

"Well crap, now what?" Stiles glanced at Sourwolf, and (surprise, surprise) got no answer.

Instead, he was grabbed roughly by the wrist and dragged towards the guards, which in his opinion was not exactly an idea he was fond of. Sourwolf then proceeded to knock the guards out with his bare hands, and Stiles wishes he had that kind of manpower. 

"Not that I'm not grateful enough to be swooning at your feet or something, but I kind of need my staff? Harris, that asshole, took it from me I think."

Sourwolf did this weird sigh/growl thing, and he was starting to sound like he'd regretted rescuing him, but five minutes later Stiles was happily in possession of his staff once again. 

"Dude, you're kind of awesome, I hope you realize. Like, the best of the best, that type of thing-"

He shut up when more guards came running at them, but the two of them managed to fight their way through out of the ship and to the courtyard. Outside in the open space lit by torches and moonlight, more guards came rushing at them, and those annoying archers from before were there too, but they continued to weave past arrows and various other weapons as they made their way towards the open gates. Just as they reached them, though, the metal gates came crashing down with a loud clang that resonated throughout the entire courtyard. Stiles groaned in frustration and Sourwolf clenched his gloved fists. They turned around with their backs to the looming gate to see a line of soldiers facing them and many more behind at the ready. 

"Now what?" he muttered, but as usual (wow Stiles was sensing a pattern here) he got no reply from his companion.

"Now, the masked rogue hands you over to me and he gets to get out of here alive," Harris stated as he stepped out from behind the wall of firebenders.

"Lovely, it's him again," Stiles sighed.

To his surprise, Sourwolf gave a weak snort from next to him. He guessed that Harris had a reputation for being a dick, in general.

All of a sudden, Stiles yelped when he felt himself manhandled into a broad chest. His eyes widened when he heard a soft clang of metal and felt a cold sharpness at his neck. No one in the courtyard moved as the Avatar suddenly went from escapee to hostage.

Stiles gulped and felt the blades dig into his neck. The position forced him to look up towards the moon, which, he noted, was full tonight.

"Sourwolf, what are you doing?" he whispered. 

He got his answer when, after a few tense moments of silence, Harris gestured at his men to stand down. 

"Next time we meet, Avatar, you will be on your way in chains to the empress for sure," he glared. "As for you, rogue wolf, I don't know who you think you are, but I will have your head. I can promise you that."

Stiles felt Sourwolf slowly edging backwards and felt himself being dragged along as the metal gates open once again. The pair continued out of the military base and into the woods beyond until the seething admiral was just a speck in the distance, then the swords disappeared from his neck and a hand roughly grabbed his wrist. Finally they turned their backs on the enemy and ran into the dark woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Derek's mask](http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs44/i/2009/148/2/2/Kuroinu___Japanese_Wolf_Mask_by_merimask.jpg)  
>  Questions, comments, concerns? It was a bit rushed, sorry.A little longer than my first two, because I couldn't find a good place to end it and I didn't wanna cut it short because you guys don't deserve that after I bailed for almost two months. Woops?  
> So, things finally happened! Yay!  
> On an unhappier note, I have no idea when my next update will be. Maybe a quick one before school starts again?  
> Oh yeah, and to anyone who hasn't seen Avatar (why haven't you) I'm sorry if you don't get what's happening at all, I have no descriptive skills whatsoever. It would help if you watched the show, because I'm following it pretty closely. (aka go watch it)


End file.
